Contents

Pyongyang documents Delisle's experiences in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, where he stayed for two months. Acting as the liaison between a French animation producing company (Protecrea[1] working for TF1[2]) and the SEK Studio (Scientific Educational Korea) company, he struggles with the difficulties of outsourcing and the bureaucracy of the totalitarian closed state.

The book has 176 pages, two of them drawn by a French colleague ("Fabrice").

Delisle encounters former colleagues working at SEK Studio on an adaptation of the Corto Maltese comics. He also meets foreign diplomats, NGO workers in the World Food Programme and businessmen, such as French engineers installing an HDTV transmitter.

Delisle is surprised by things such as reverse walking, the absence of disabled and elderly people, North Korean music propaganda, the cult of personality for past leader Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il, the required presence of his translator and guide, nearly-expired water from the South, Coca-Cola and kimjongilias. He also notes the extreme level of apparent brainwashing in the citizens of Pyongyang, perhaps prompted by the oppressive atmosphere of the area. When questioned regarding the lack of disabled people in Pyongyang, his guide asserts and seems to genuinely believe that North Korea has no disabled, and that the children of the "Korean race" are all born healthy, strong and intelligent.